A scintillator is a material that may exhibit scintillation. A scintillator may absorb ionizing radiation and emit a fraction of the absorbed energy as light. For example, an incoming particle, such as a gamma photon, incident on the scintillator may create an energized electron, either by Compton scattering or by photoelectric absorption; as the energized electron passes through the scintillator, it may lose energy and excite one or more other electrons; the excited electron(s) may decay to the ground state, giving off light. As such, the scintillator may produce photons of visible or ultraviolet light corresponding to incoming particles that interact with the scintillator material. The intensity of the light pulses may be proportional to the energy deposited in the scintillator by the incoming particles.
A detector may be formed by coupling a scintillator to an electronic light sensor, i.e. a photodetector. Detectors are widely used in radiation detection in many fields including, for example, Homeland Security radiation detection, neutron and high energy particle physics experiments, new energy resource exploration, X-ray detection, nuclear cameras, gas exploration, etc. Merely by way of example, detectors are also widely used in medical imaging technology such as Computed Tomography (CT) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET).
Scintillators used in, for example, the medical imaging technology, may be manufactured with materials containing rare earth elements such as, for example, Lanthanum, Lutetium, Yttrium, etc. Scintillators containing rare earth elements may be expensive due to factors including, for example, the difficulty of crystallization, the scarcity of economically exploitable ore deposits, etc. The costs for an apparatus, system and/or method involving one or more scintillators may be high. Therefore, it is desired to lower the costs of such an apparatus, system and/or method lower costs.